Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

The Phillies have signed infielder Hector Luna and outfielder Luis Montanez to minor league contracts, inviting both to spring training.

But they also lost infielder Carlos Rivero, who had a break-out season at Reading and was a likely candidate for the IronPigs roster, on waivers to Washington.

The 23-year-old Rivero, who the Phillies claimed off waivers from Cleveland last winter, hit .275 with 15 homers and 66 RBIs for Reading last year while making the switch from shortstop to third base. He also played briefly for the IronPigs (.185-1-5 in 27 at-bats) in early August before being sent back down to make room for the ill-fated Jack Cust experiment.

Rivero was designated for assignment to add Jimmy Rollins back to the roster.

As for Luna, the 31-year-old played for Pawtucket last year, hitting .283 with 14 homers and 58 RBIs in 113 games, and has averaged 14, 59 RBIs and a .269 average in 104 games over his last four Triple-A seasons.

Luna has also hit .265 with 13 home runs and 86 RBI in 311 games between the Cardinals (2004-06), Indians (2006), Blue Jays (2007-08) and Marlins (2010).

Montanez, the third pick in the 2000 draft, hit .321 with 22 doubles, seven triples, seven homers and 69 RBIs in 92 games for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs last season. the 30-year-old also hit .222 in 36 games (54 at-bats) for the Cubs last year and is a .229 hitter in 129 big-league games with the Orioles and Cubs over the last four years, including a home run in his first major league at-bat.

He's a .283 hitter in 277 Triple-A seasons, a .287 hitter overall in 12 minor-league seasons. He also won the 2008 Eastern League Triple Crown (.335-26-97) while at Bowie despite playing in only 116 games.